I frowned, realizing that was exactly the problem.

At this moment, there was nothing wrong, besides the usual fate of the world stuff I’d become mostly inured to.

I couldn’t deal with that. I’d been compressed, gripped in a painful vise. I’d gotten used to it.

It was things being wrong that had given me shape and purpose and kept me going.

But in the past twenty-four hours, I’d gone from being one hundred percent consumed by grief and rage to having every single reason for feeling those emotions stripped away.

Barrons was alive. Grief—poof!

The man I’d believed had murdered my sister, the one I’d been so committed to killing, was dead. The infamous Lord Master was gone.

That chapter of my life was over. He would never again lead the Unseelie, wreak havoc in my world, or hunt and hurt me. I didn’t have to constantly watch over my shoulder for him anymore. The bastard who’d turned me Pri-ya was beyond my vengeful grasp. He’d gotten his just deserts. Well … he was dead, anyway. His just deserts would have been a whole lot worse if I’d been in charge of doling them out.

Regardless, he’d been my raison d’être for the longest time. And he was gone.

What did that leave me? Revenge—poof!

I’d always envisioned a final showdown between the two of us, and I would kill him.

Who was my villain now? Who would I hate and blame for Alina’s death? It wasn’t Darroc. He’d had a genuine weakness for her. He hadn’t killed her and, if he’d been somehow responsible for her death, he hadn’t known it. Six months in Dublin, and I was no closer to uncovering my sister’s murderer.

With Barrons alive and Darroc dead, there went my all-consuming focus on revenge.

My parents were safe and in Barrons’ care. There was no one I needed to save.

I had no urgent purpose, no express deadline. I felt lost. Directionless.

Sure, I had most of the same primary goals I’d had before I’d gone into the Silvers and everything had gone so terribly wrong, but grief had poured me into a tight box and those walls had shaped me. Now that the box was gone, I could feel myself collapsing into a shapeless blob.

What was next? Where to from here? I needed time to absorb the sudden changes in my reality and recalibrate my emotions. Confusing me even more, beneath the joy I felt that Barrons was alive, I was … well, angry. Furious, actually. There was something seething inside me. And I didn’t even know what. But deep down, underneath it all, I was working up a major temper and feeling … stupid. Like I’d leapt to conclusions that didn’t hold water.

I got out of the shower, thoroughly disgruntled, and picked through my clothes, dissatisfied with them all.

Yesterday I would have known exactly what to wear. Today I had no idea. Pink or black? Maybe it was time for a new favorite color. Or maybe no favorite color at all.

Rain pattered against the window while I dithered. Dublin was once again gray.

I pulled on a pair of gray capri sweats with JUICY stamped across my ass, a zip-up sweatshirt, and flip-flops. If Barrons still wasn’t around, I would start cleaning up downstairs a little.

After all, I’d done what he’d asked.

My parents were free, I was alive, Darroc was dead, and I had the stones tucked securely away in the heavily runed bedroom of a penthouse.

According to my understanding of the law, that made it my bookstore now.

That meant it was also my Lamborghini. My Viper, too.

“It wasn’t my fucking idea, either,” I heard Barrons growl as I descended the rear stairs.

The door to his study was open a few inches, and I could hear him moving around in there, picking things up and putting them back down.

I stopped on the last step and smiled, reveling in the simple pleasure of hearing his voice again. Until he’d been gone, I hadn’t understood how empty the world was without him.

My smile faded. I shifted from foot to foot on the stairs.

My mood might be sunshine glinting off water, but there was a dark undertow beneath the placid surface.

I’d gone further off the deep end than I liked to think about, with the whole decimate-the-universe kick I’d been on. I’d been one hundred percent committed to wresting whatever dark knowledge I’d needed from the Book, no matter the cost to myself or anyone else. I’d been willing to do anything it could teach me in order to replace this world with a new one. All because I’d believed Jericho Barrons was dead.

I hadn’t even had a concrete plan, except to get the Book and wing it, believing I could master whatever spells of making and unmaking it had to offer. Looking back on my behavior, I was stymied by it. Rabid ambition, insane focus.